In Mr. Knox's Country Part 22

There was nothing for it but to take from a hook a grey and white fragment that looked like bacon, place half-a-crown on the counter, and depart swiftly.

"I gave a few of the Asylum patients leave to go to the Sports," said Dr. Hickey, a little later, when we were seated between the large bare table and the wall of the little sitting-room, with slices of fried pork weltering on our plates. "I saw the fellow waltzing down the street. Ah! he's fairly harmless, and they've a couple o' keepers with them anyway."

"The only pity was that you left the half-crown," said Mrs. M'Evoy; "a shilling was too much for it."

Mrs. M'Evoy was considerably flushed, and had an effective black smear on her forehead, but her voice had recovered its timbre. There was a tin of biscuits on the table, there was a war-worn brown teapot, and some bottles of porter; it was now four hours since I had eaten anything; in spite of the cold and clear resolve of the night before, I was feeding, grossly yet enjoyably, with Dr. Hickey and his friends.

"This is a Temperance Hotel for the past year," remarked Dr. Hickey, delicately knocking off the head of a porter bottle with the sitting-room poker. "That's why it was upstairs I found the porter. I suppose they took the corkscrew to the Sports with them."

"How did they lose the license at all?" said Mrs. M'Evoy; "I thought there wasn't a house in Carrow Cross but had one."

"It was taken from them over some little mistake about selling potheen," replied Dr. Hickey, courteously applying the broken neck of the bottle to Mrs. M'Evoy's tumbler. "The police came to search the house, and old Lynch, that was in bed upstairs, heard them, and threw a two-gallon jar of potheen out of the top back window, to break it. The unlucky thing was that there was a goose in the yard, and it was on the goose it fell."

"The creature!" said Miss M'Evoy, "was she killed?"

"Killed to the bone, as they say," replied the Doctor; "but the trouble was, that on account of falling on the goose the jar wasn't broken, so the bobbies got the potheen."

"Supposing they summons you now for the porter!" said Mrs. M'Evoy, facetiously, casting her eye through the open window into the bare sunshiny street.

"They'll have summonses enough at Carrow Bay to keep them out of mischief," returned Dr. Hickey. "It's a pity now, Major, you didn't patronise the Sports. They might have put you on judging the cakes with Mrs. M'Evoy."

"Why then, the one they put on with me was the man they had judging the vegetables," said Mrs. M'Evoy, after a comfortable pull at the contraband porter. "'That's a fine weighty cake,' says me lad, weighing a sponge-cake on his hand. 'We'll give that one the prize.'"

"I wish you brought it here with you," said her daughter, "as weighty as it was."

"They put _me_ judging the row-boats," said Dr. Hickey, "but after the third race I had to give up, and put five st.i.tches in one of the men that was in the mark-boat."

I said that the mark-boat ought to have been a fairly safe place.

"Safe!" said Dr. Hickey. "It was the hottest corner in the course. I thought they were sunk twice, but they might have been all right if they hadn't out-oars and joined in the race on the second round. They got in first, as it happened, and it was in the course of the protest that I had to put in the st.i.tches. It was a good day's sport, as far as it went."

"Ah, there's no life in a Regatta without a band," said Miss M'Evoy languidly, with her elbows on the table and her cup in her hand. "Now Ringsend Regatta's sweet!"

"I'm afraid Miss M'Evoy didn't enjoy herself to-day," said Dr. Hickey.

"Of course she's used to so much attention in Dublin----"

"It's kind of you to say that," said Miss M'Evoy; "I'm sure you're quite an authority on Dublin young ladies."

"Is it me?" said Dr. Hickey; "I'd be afraid to say Boo to a goose. But I've a brother that could tell you all about them. He's not as shy as I am."

"He must be a great help and comfort to you," returned Miss M'Evoy.

"He's very romantic," said Dr. Hickey, "and poetical. He was greatly struck with two young ladies he met at the Ringsend Regatta last month.

He mistook their address, someway, and when he couldn't find them, what did he do but put a poem in the papers--the Agony Column, y'know----"

"We'd like to hear that," said Mrs. M'Evoy, putting her knife into the salt with unhurried dexterity.

"I forget it all, only the last verse," said Dr. Hickey, "it went this way:

'You are indeed a charming creature, Perfect alike in form and feature, I love you and none other.

Oh, Let.i.tia--Here's your Mother!'"

As Dr. Hickey, his eyes modestly on his plate, concluded the ode, I certainly intercepted a peculiar glance between the ladies.

"I call that very impident," said Mrs. M'Evoy, winking at me.

"It was worth paying a good deal to put that in print!" commented Miss M'Evoy unkindly. "But that was a lovely Regatta," she continued, "and the music and the fireworks were grand, but the society's very mixed.

Do you remember, M'ma, what happened to Mary and me that evening, the time we missed you in the dark?"

"Indeed'n I do," said Mrs. M'Evoy, her eyes still communing with her daughter's, "and I remember telling you it was the last evening I'd let you out of my sight."

"It was a gentleman that picked up my umbrella," began Miss M'Evoy artlessly.

Dr. Hickey dropped his knife on the floor, and took some time to pick it up.

"And he pa.s.sed the remark to me that it was a nice evening," went on Miss M'Evoy. "'It is,' said I. Now, M'ma, why wouldn't I give him a civil answer?"

"That's according to taste," said Mrs. M'Evoy.

"Well indeed I didn't fancy his looks at all. It was pitch dark only for the fireworks, but I thought he had a nasty kind of a foreign look, and a little pointed beard on him too. If you saw the roll of his eye when the green fire fell out of the rockets you'd think of Mephistopheles----"

"There's no doubt Mephistopheles was one of Shakespeare's grandest creations," said Dr. Hickey hurriedly. His eyes besought my aid. It struck me that this literary digression was an attempt to change the conversation.

Miss M'Evoy resumed her narrative.

"'That's a pretty flower you have in your b.u.t.ton-hole,' said he. 'It is,' said I."

"You didn't tell him a great deal he didn't know," said her mother.

"'Maybe you might give it to me?' said he. 'Maybe I might not!' said I. 'And where do you live?' said he. 'Percy Place,' says Mary, before you could wink. Anyone would have to believe her. 'Upon my soul,'

said he, 'I'll have the pleasure of calling upon you. Might I ask what your name is?' 'O'Rooney,' says Mary, 'and this is my cousin, Miss Let.i.tia Gollagher.' Well, when Mary said 'Gollagher,' I _burst!_"

Miss M'Evoy here put down her cup, and to some slight extent repeated the operation.

"I suppose the foreign gentleman told you his own name then?" said Dr.

Hickey, whose complexion had warmed up remarkably.

"He did not," said Miss M'Evoy; "but perhaps that was because he wasn't asked, and it was then M'ma came up. I can tell you he didn't wait to be introduced!"

"I have a sister-in-law living in Percy Place," said Mrs. M'Evoy, pa.s.sing her handkerchief over her brow, and addressing no one in particular, "and it was some day last month she was telling me of a young man that was knocking at all the doors down the street, and she thought he was a Collector of some sort. He came to her house too, and he told the girl he was looking for some ladies of the name of Gollagher or O'Rooney."

She paused, and regarded Dr. Hickey.

"I wonder did he find them?" asked Dr. Hickey, who was obviously being forced on to the ropes.

"I thought you might be able to tell us that!" said Mrs. M'Evoy, delivering her knock-out blow with the suddenness that belongs to the highest walks of the art.

Miss M'Evoy, with equal suddenness, uttered a long and strident yell, and lay back in her place, grasping my arm as she did so, in what I am convinced was wholly unconscious sympathy. She and I were side by side, facing the window, and through the window, which, as I have mentioned, was wide open, I was aware of a new element in the situation.